Tune into birdsong and identify the feathered creatures based on their calls alone
Have you ever found yourself in a garden, wondering about the bird behind that lovely song? Or have you ever been outdoors and heard an unusual squawking, curious to know what creature it could be? Well, there's a Raspberry Pi project that can help you with that.
A fellow Redditor, known as Jumpin_jon, has developed an application using a Raspberry Pi that can answer these questions and much more. The application, called BirdNET-Pi, utilizes an open-source tool to listen to, recognize, and identify birds based on their calls. By processing audio input from a USB microphone, BirdNET-Pi utilizes a tool called TFLite to identify the bird species.
BirdNET-Pi, built specifically for the Raspberry Pi, combines official and unofficial tools. It is a real-time birdsong recognition and identification system developed by Patrick McGuire, who forked the project from Stefan Kah's BirdNET-Lite. This system uses TFLite + RASPIGUI's GUI to identify birds using audio recordings and SOSIs (species of specific interest) contributed by people from all over the world.
However, BirdNET-Pi is not just for wildlife enthusiasts. The project page also provides links to multiple charities that encourage people to record bird sounds, especially those of diminishing or threatened species, as well as new or visiting species. McGuire claims that the tool can identify hundreds of bird species from different countries worldwide.
Setting up this project does not require much hardware. All you need is a compatible Raspberry Pi and a microphone. In the case of Jumpin_jon, they used a Raspberry Pi 4 B 4GB model and an Agptek Lavalier omnidirectional microphone, which connects to the Pi via a USB adapter.
On the official BirdNET-Pi GitHub page, you can find detailed information about the application, including various features available. It offers real-time effects, screen capture, sonograms, and even a night mode.
The developer recommends using the 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS Lite version, specifically Bullseye, for optimal results. If you are interested in creating this project yourself and have the necessary equipment, there are some tweaks you can make to achieve the best outcomes.
For more information, you can check out the original Reddit thread shared by Jumpin_jon and explore the BirdNET-Pi GitHub repository to gain a closer look at how this system operates. If you enjoy monitoring nature and birds at home, you might also want to take a look at our list of five of the best bird feeder station ideas for Raspberry Pi.
